Gamification: It’s all about Chemistry!

How Gamification works? Why we like play games? What motivates us? What is it that tells our brain to take a certain action? And why do companies like IBM , Nike & Microsoft are interested in it?

Turns out that it’s a story about our Brain. And, It is widely known as The Dopamine effect!

Dopamine (simply means) it is a neuron transmitter (which is a chemical) responsible for transmitting signals between neuron cells (neurons) of the brain. Dopamine is widely known to be released/activated in the brain in case there is a reward or surprise or any other pleasurable incidence & it works like a drug for brain i.e. it becomes addictive everytime dopamine is realised. And that’s why, we love rewards over & over again!

Many in Technology/Marketing understood the importance of this, and a few decades ago & started making use of it by developing games. Later this phenomenon was successfully replicated in some non-game structures by some of the techies like Dennis Crowley of Dodgeball & Foursquare.

According to Gartner, by the end of 2014, over 70% of Global 2000 organizations will have at least one 'gamified' application. From Microsoft to Nike to IBM, everyone is in the same bandwagon.

Games motivate us; it’s nothing but putting in the psychological triggers in our brain to produce specific behaviour.

Many have tried to “Gamify” their services for business gains but have been unsuccessful, which they did without understanding the logic behind it. There are number of enterprise gamification applications, numerous game mechanics & game elements present around us but its often forgotten that just by just adding some Points & Badges in any scenario would not make a successful gamified system. It should lead to something more satisfying enriching as the player moves on to further stages.It requires thought & lot of homework at conceptualization stage before it can be envisioned as a gamified system. It has to be understood that, any action being designed has to create atleast a small amount of dopamine effect.

Gamification is a powerful tool which can convince people to select product A over product B, to shop from an E-commerce portal than a shopping mall.

It is said to be one of the most influential but an underestimated tool in business today.

English in Internet Age

Gone are the days when a toddler walks into his first pre-primary class, where he is given legos & plastic balls to play with. Instead, legos are now replaced with iPads, Bat & Ball in real life is replaced with Wifi USB stick.

It won’t be surprising to see if the kids are learning A for Android rather than an Apple !

Lets see this list of probable alphabets the new age toddlers would learn. 

A for …  Android/Angry birds
B for …  Blackberry/Bluetooth
C for …  Chrome/Candy Crush
D for …  Data/Download/Delicious
E for …  Email/Evernote
F for …  Facebook/Flicker/Foursquare
G for …  Google

H for …  Hootsuite
I for …   Instagram/Internet Explorer
J for …   Java
K for …  Kindle/ Kitkat
L for …   Linkedin/Line

M for …  Mobile/Mozilla

N for …  Nintendo/Netscape

O for …  Opera/.org

P for …   Pinterest/Picasa/Pocket

Q for …  Quora

R for …  Reddit/Rediff

S for …  Skype/Subway Surf/Stumble upon/Snapchat

T for …  Twitter/Tumblr/Tango/Temple Run

U for … User Experience (UX)

V for …  Viber/Vine

W for … Whats app/Windows/Wikipedia/Wordpress

X for …  Xbox

Y for …  Youtube/Yahoo

Z for …   Zomato

Try & add your lingo !!

Android to Cyborgs : Is Google Glass paving the way to Implants?

Google Glass. Sergey Brin describes- a new way of seeing our relationships with mobile computers.

And it’s not only Google; Apple, Microsoft, among other players have already patented or in the processes of patenting the technology which can help head mounted devices.

In a recent blog, Nicholas Carr, explores the idea of "Underwearables", where the wearable gadget is attached to the undergarments ! Google may not be the first entrant, but can it redefine the category as Apple did with iPads? Wearables are a reality today. So the real question is, how can it be bettered? What’s next?

Will it happen like Pagers? It came & disappeared in no time and Mobile phone took its place.

For some it may seem to be a premature question. But the rate, at which the technologically is advancing, it is not far fetched.

So what can betterment mean in Wearables?

• Making the device smaller & faster
• May be hidden in our clothes or may be our clothes itself !
• Or maybe we don’t need to better it. We will just skip bettering it and create a new category altogether:- Implants !

Implants: - Devices implanted in our body as our own body part. This will make us ‘Cyborgs’ . Connected 24/7 & hidden from everyone else. Like the GPS chip inserted in Daniel Craig’s wrist in one of the recent James Bond movie!

The device may work on voice commands. It can be an eye lens connected via Bluetooth which work with similar features of Google Glass.

Or it may combine with a smart phone implanted behind the ear which is both hidden from others and provides display through eye lens.

Possibilities are innumerable and we should ready to live with such new ways of life!

How Facebook makes you sad?

We love Facebook. We do. I love to hangout, share pictures & talk (online chat) to our friends. But have you tried noticing yourself after using Facebook? Do you feel happier after using it every time?

A study conducted by University of Michigan says, you may not. Infact, overtime it may reduce your happiness quotient making you feel lonely, dissatisfied & disgruntled even when not consuming any form of social media.

Why would that be? 

The answer lies in the way we USE Facebook.

Everyone is different & uses social media differently. Users are mainly of two types:

§  Active users: Users who not only consume but also engage & participate in the posts. These users consistently like/comment or post new stuff on the wall. These people are characterised with high self esteem, high confidence & openly discussing their life events within the group.

Majority of the posts revolve around boasting & finding acknowledgement, about life events from social groups like posting pictures from an exotic holiday or a work promotion. Some of them try to engage in a discussion on social cause & some try to push their business agendas.

§  Passive users: These users do not engage in social media per se. They will passively check out the pictures/videos posted, click on the links & Infographics, check out profiles of friends but will rarely like/comment on the same. Also, they will rarely posts new data on the wall.

If you are passive user, chances are you are becoming sad every time you use Facebook. The more you use it, sadder you become.

The reason is, passive users compare their real life events with the reel life pictures of their friends, which may makes them feel that the life they are living is not to the fullest & rich as others.

This develops a feeling of jealousy & envy, which then worsens our offline or real relationship with others leading to a lonely & dissatisfaction self.

How to overcome this loneliness:

In this highly connected world, life without social media is almost impossible to imagine. But with right attitude & actions we can better its impact on us.

• Needless to say- Reduce your time spent on social media
• Increase your face-to-face conversations with your friends. This takes social ties to a different level.
• Don’t post any data which your family (sister/mother etc) would be uncomfortable viewing about you. Remember: Even prospective employers checkout your social media profile.
• Follow a distinction between genuine friends & general acquaintances. This will help you in sharing the data; avoid cyber bulling & jealousy.
• Reply to comments; especially when questions are asked
• Review the people/groups you ‘like’ on regular basis. If you feel uncomfortable or saddened by some specific posts, hide it from the timeline. Overtime Facebook & others may understand that you do not like such posts & will stop showing it in your timeline 

3 Reasons for your addiction to your Smartphone

What happens when we are alone with nothing to do for even few minutes (rather in some cases- few seconds) ?  - We pull out a nice shinning device from our pocket called our Smartphone. 

And if we don't have that , we feel handicapped & uncomfortable.

Numerous stats are available all over the net to prove the addiction.
So, lets get down to reasons right away.

Reason 1 – Remaining Social. 

We want to be connected. Fear of losing out on any notification, no matter how inconsequential the post, message or email is.

A study by Google in 2011, says that about 89% use smart phones to be connected via email & social media. 

So, why do we want to be social? An apt answer can be derived from the excerpt from Sherry Turkle’s article, an MIT professor. “We are lonely but fearful of intimacy. Digital connections offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. We expect more from technology and less from each other”.

Reason 2 – Information overload.

There about 60 trillion Webpages (and growing) on the internet. And, we live in a world where we have to remain updated about everything in within minutes of the news/development.There is so much pressure to know things, we just gulp the information. We don’t interpret it and if we do, we might lose out on the new information which is about to surface.

Nicholas Carr in his blog, highlights a related point extensively. He points out that, people (including from literally background) are losing patience and concentration required to read long articles.

We are so used to reading small snippets of information on the web (e.g. twitter 140 characters), which makes it impossible to read through a long article (no matter how interesting/important it is). 

We feel comfortable multitasking, reading numerous topics in a shortest possible time available.

Infact we are kill our ability to concentrate, analyse & interpret information,  again making us less productive by using our Smartphones more often.

Reason 3 - Intimidated by Boredom

So here’s a rhetoric question; When was the last time you spent an hour (forget a day) without any electronic device? 

Why do we do that? Probable reason could be boredom.

Living with oneself is understood to be one of the most difficult tasks; it supposedly makes us ask difficult questions to ourselves. And we are so scared by that, we search some other activity to engage ourselves into. So we take out our phones to fill the “gaps” (as called by Joe Kraus) of our day.